Oakland will be the home team, but the Seattle Mariners and outfielder Ichiro Suzuki will be the crowd favorites as Major League Baseball opens its 2012 season in Tokyo today and Thursday.
Today's game was set to start at 3:10 a.m. Tucson time and Thursday's at 2:10 a.m. The MLB network is showing both on tape delay at 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. each day.
Suzuki, the main attraction for Japanese fans, was greeted by the twinkling of thousands of camera flashes as he approached the plate in exhibition games. Around town, he is omnipresent, his likeness all over the street on billboards and all over television on commercials.
"It's a special event, it's important to us," he said, referring to Seattle playing in Japan for the first time. "This is probably a once-in-a-lifetime event for myself."
Seattle has one other Japanese player, infielder Munenori Kawasaki, on its 25-man roster. Another, pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma, was among the 30 Seattle brought on a trip that also included two exhibition games against Japanese professional teams.
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Japan is playing host to its fourth MLB opener, after the New York Mets versus Chicago Cubs in 2000, the New York Yankees against Tampa Bay in 2004 and Boston versus Oakland in 2008.
This year's teams played before near-sellout crowds of more than 42,000 in each of their doubleheader exhibitions last weekend against the Hanshin Tigers and Yomiuri Giants of the Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. The Mariners lost 5-1 to the Tigers and 9-3 to the Giants . The A's beat the Giants 5-0 and lost to the Tigers 12-6.
In his eight at-bats, Suzuki had one hit, a single in his first time up.
Oakland has its own Suzuki - Hawaii-born catcher Kurt, who starred for Cal State Fullerton in 2004 when the Titans won the College World Series.
Seattle is the only MLB team with a Japanese owner, retired Nintendo chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi, 84, who has had a majority stake in the Mariners since 1992 yet has never seen his team play in person. Even though this week's games will be played at the Tokyo Dome, about a two-hour drive from his home in Kyoto, he will watch on television.
The Athletics and Mariners also play in their mainland regular-season opener, April 6 at Oakland.
MLB is still referring to April 4 as Opening Day, when defending world champion St. Louis plays Miami in the Marlins' new ballpark.
